


poems, short prose pieces, essays, and whatnot

by blood_and_gore



Series: Originals [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol, Aromanticism, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Torture, Language of Flowers, Love Poems, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Poetry, Prompt Fill, Song Lyrics, Synesthesia, Tumblr Prompt, when a demiromantic person feels romantic attraction for the first time in their life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-01-13 03:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18460886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blood_and_gore/pseuds/blood_and_gore
Summary: A collection of poetry, mostly stuff originally posted on my tumblr.





	1. your soul's a hurricane

_your soul’s a hurricane and i fear i’ve just stepped in._

reminding myself not to throw myself straight into danger is more difficult than one would expect. certain death at every corner. losing, each argument with myself  _why the hell am i ready to drown? i’m looking at the sun and driving myself blind_

and who cares if the translations from thought to word are wrong? your fault not mine  _Ego te provoco_  and grammar’s the worst when i’m out of mind, out of soul. when one ignores formatting and capitalizes names alone to capitalize on nonexistent skill in the name of helpless infatuation, unironic pretentiousness  _i know you’re laughing o beloved and o beloved reader_  art not for art’s sake but for my own and what probably isn’t love. too many poems, lyrics translated into songs

_wait, i know who cares! i do_

 but it’s a dead language and i’ve no patience for looking in front of me. and so i stare into the sun like an obstinate six-year-old, causing damage every four seconds or so

 _Ab aeterno_  if this is temporary i want it over with. _shut up you idiot no one’s gonna-_  oh gods no one’s gonna wanna fucking read an outpour of unsureness and stress.

infatuation infatuation  _Hic amor manet_  no no nevermind, nevermore,  _quoth the raven_

_GO AWAY_

_useless fucking attraction that i don’t need_. ditching the classics for the 19th century, oh how romantic! Mr. Chopin, tell me if your  _eyes full of sorrow_  still itch from pollen and fantasies in major keys, forget the piano, please just let me wail

because unrequited love is  _fucking annoying_

all this pining and missing. jasmine and pine, the incense burns out just from sitting here trying to meditate and then there’s a burn on my finger and an ache in my chest. brokenhearted, or maybe that’s just from the binding. maybe i just need        a                               break,   maybe i just-

ah, hypocrisy, to tell myself not to jump into tragedy-       

 _don’t stare at the sun_  and then i do anyway.

and it’s foolish to not obey myself, to never take my own advice, but

_your soul’s a hurricane and i’ve long since drowned._

_oh how i wish-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/169098147800/your-souls-a-hurricane-and-i-fear-ive-just


	2. i make mistakes

i make mistakes. i am mistakes. i am mistake. a mistake, i am, i am, i am waiting to happen. i am disaster in effect, failure in advance.

i am a Wagner aria. i am the grief of Schumann, her fingers still on the keys and voice hoarse from crying. i am the cry, i am the scream. i am the cracking voice of Diana Goodman, the ghost and the grief and the madness, and i am Natalie’s hate. i am frustration.  _flat fucking crazy!_  i was Mozart once.

i am Don Giovanni realizing what he was. i am his descent, the entirety of his death. i am awful. i am lies.

i am the lighter that burns love letters and concert programs alike. ash and smoke, embers and scorch marks on the table. the scent that fills the basement, dreaming of love with gasoline. i am the paper doused in cedarwood oil, the sage, the lavender, the wood, the incense, the matches. setting things on fire under the guise of spirituality. heresy, falseness, fakeness.

i am the destruction of a forest. i am fire, i am from fire, i am ash, i am trash on the edges of what’s sane. in the edge of a clearing, i am, i am, i am splinters and debris.

i am free?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted at http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/172269515638/i-make-mistakes-i-am-mistakes-i-am-mistake-a


	3. of this i dream

of this  **i**  dream:    black + white cinema pale  
                            and all that’ **s**  in be **t** ween  
l **i** ving in the graysca **l** e of 3am’s noctisonance

a bitter choco **l** ate story;  
the goo **d**  in the evil, a t **o** xic candy apple,  
and all that’s in between. of this i dream:

outrageous joy beyond the pale of evening’s glows.

                                        and yet eternal,  
          sky filled with glitter-glowing glory,  
starry euphonic euphoria     touched by spirits    angelic and infernal  
what’s holy and what’s not  
                                          and all that’s in between.  
the good in the evil.

in untumbled and true moonstone and quartz,  **i** n  
                     layered and  **c** arved p **a** per and opalite. what’s of the Earth and of Huma **n** ity  
                                         and all that’s in betwee **n** ;

the stars will c **o** ntinue  
when i depar **t**  this world. the good a **n** d the evil  
and the g **o** od in  **t** he evil  
                                       and all that’s in between-  
 _awaken o dreamer  
_ _your dreams are impossible_ i should not **dream**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted at http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/174396150813/of-this-i-dream-black-white-cinema-pale


	4. the sound of his touch is a vision

the sound of his touch is a vision.  _love in vera,_  green and blue

 _adagio_  bright as red  _strings_  tied up by tired fingers.

 _easy andante cantabile_  cantor  ~~in the closet,~~  closet open.

burn the closet up and burn it down  _day of wrath_  on the shame and hurt for love is a requiem, holy and ever.

the missing of his touch:  _porgi amor_.  _thy hand_ , i ask my comrades. give me comfort in my loneliness?

 _o mi rendi mia_  salute mentale

a sonata so easy even i can play it

~~i would list more songs, but i like to believe our love is copyrighted,~~

~~unique. i’d like to believe that i’ll love him forever~~

( _thy hand,_  i ask my comrades.

give me comfort, say he loves me in that way.  _pieta, pieta._ )

but that isn’t how it works

the sound of my mind:  _lascia almen morir_

~~mess up the ending and sing an A flat, sharp as the pain of loneliness; not everything goes as i wish it~~

i tried to make a playlist of his touch today. i tried and failed, and i will fail when i learn to love again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted at http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/175647347773/the-sound-of-his-touch-is-a-vision-love-in


	5. i have always been more

 

              human of copper

                human of silver,                human of gold

                   human of fire

she thought i’d forget her         but she didn’t know

                 burning desire

of bones and of feathers        that never grow cold

  Lord of the forests,

   King of the ocean,           Emperor of rock ‘n’ roll             this hollow world

                                       'cause i remember before

                                                  always on my own

      and when you said  _how ya doin’_  i said hollow,

                                     said i’m hollow here alone     said  _of course i’m a girl_

      and i’m still gonna walk the whole way home

                                                       'cause the panic is too much

                                 and i’m wasted as a kid for first time drunk

                             with infinite optional points of view

    but at every place the roads cross, it’s always you

                               i’m the moon and the rain

                 forged in fire,        flawed as flame

                                  i am darker than space    and bright as the sun

       i’m destructive but it’s not as bad as before

                                                   i have always been more

                                                                                i i have only begun.


	6. (five unrelated short poems)

rot, drown, o awful year. shred, burn, choke, decay. melt, fall, and disappear. may you die and may you fade; you are no longer wanted here.

.

i have wished for death, as if it were a promise from birthday candles. 11:11, first-star-i-see-tonight, five daisy petals. i have waited.

.

God took a nap, and this has all been a nightmare.

.

 

this is how the world works: they squeeze their employees dry and then blame them for not having enough blood. they’ve got a vested interest in money, not survival-  
as long as there’s someone for the cash register, as long as there’s an assembly line of children with no union, no education, no care- because they don’t and never will. they’ve got a vested interest in money, not people.

wait. scratch that. corporations are people, and the most important ones. check the top percentage, the highest content, commercials telling the paper margins to drink. they’ve got a vested interest in our addiction, not recovery.

human investments. there’s a vested interest in production.

.

this is what they call despair. this is misery without company, this is a phantom emptiness inside my lungs where my body tries to figure out why my brain is saying  _pain, pain, pain_. this is an attempt at hate that turns into sorrow. fatigue where there should be motive. loneliness rather than impulse. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original posts, in order:  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/169159939588/rot-drown-o-awful-year-shred-burn-choke  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/170954781440/i-have-wished-for-death-as-if-it-were-a-promise  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/169128297895/god-took-a-nap-and-this-has-all-been-a-nightmare  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/167925714553/this-is-how-the-world-works-they-squeeze-their  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/175704277553/this-is-what-they-call-despair-this-is-misery


	7. the high monologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy TW for suicide, religious angst, implied sensory overload, implied self-harm, alcohol/drug use, and implied trichotillomania.

i want to be high. i want my nostrils to sting and my eyes to change tone. i want to smack my lips together as smack runs through my veins. i want the taste of nothing. i want bitter tea infused with calmness. i want my throat to burn and heat to flow through my stomach and blood. i want blood to run down me, arms numb, pins and needles all over as sensation decides to take its leave. i want sugar between my teeth, empty calories suffocating me and hiding my awful bones. i want my finger to pulling acid til there’s nothing left. i want to be hollow for days, water and toothpaste keeping me company until i decide to break, to bury my bones again. i want to slice myself open til i can’t see clear.

 

i want to become nothing, nothing but a ghost, free to run through the multiverse, bound to nothing and no one. i want to be alone with myself, with no one to lead me; i want the Lord to quit shepherding me, that i may drown in the quiet waters by. He shall not lead me; i shall be beholden to no one, and believing in nothing, for none of the gods believe in me. their uncertain certainty, ichor, ambrosia on my face like anointing oil. i want to be holy, their divinity in my veins. i don’t want to be as i am- mortal, fragile, breakable. human.

i want to be high on everything, life included. i want to be fragile-bodied and everlasting, a wraith, a ghost, silent or loud as i wish, able to silence the fears of the fearful.

 

i want to be the nothingness that sweeps the restless and reckless, singing them to sleep. i want to sing to rest the dying, that they may fear no evil. yea, though they walk, i shall remain.

i must.

i need to.

that’s all i want, really; to be an avenging angel, a demon like a friend come to comfort a crying child in the summer. i want to stand guard over the guardless. i want to have the kind of meaning that there’s none of in this life.

i don’t want another life, to be recycled into another prison-body. i don’t want to be as sad and sober as an aging, jaded mortician opening the bodies of the bereaved.

i don’t want to be just another suicide.

 

i want to be drunk on pride, intoxicated from everything but the love i should no longer expect. i want to stop expecting anything from life. i want to be hollow of hate. i want herbal tea with honey in a microwave-safe mug in an apartment in the city where the world doesn’t sleep if you don’t want it to, where if you need sleep it comes as easily as breathing after the smell of peppermint oil in a hot shower. i want my finger stretched towards the sky. i want the rain to run down me, clothes drenched, scalp cold under the water, shivering until the sensation decides to take its leave. i want my hair to grow and change color, and my lips to raise. i want to be high.

 

i want to become nothing, nothing but a ghost, free to run through the multiverse, bound to nothing and no one. i want to be alone with myself, with no one to lead me; i want the Lord to quit shepherding me, that i may drown in the quiet waters by. He shall not lead me; i shall be beholden to no one, and believing in nothing, for none of the gods believe in me. their uncertain certainty, ichor, ambrosia on my face like anointing oil. i want to be holy, their divinity in my veins. i don’t want to be as i am- mortal, fragile, breakable. human.

i want to be high on everything, life included. i want to be fragile-bodied and everlasting, a wraith, a ghost, silent or loud as i wish, able to silence the fears of the fearful.

 

i want to be the nothingness that sweeps the restless and reckless, singing them to sleep. i want to sing to rest the dying, that they may fear no evil. yea, though they walk, i shall remain.

i must.

i need to.

that’s all i want, really; to be an avenging angel, a demon like a friend come to comfort a crying child in the summer. i want to stand guard over the guardless. i want to have the kind of meaning that there’s none of in this life.

i don’t want another life, to be recycled into another prison-body. i don’t want to be as sad and sober as an aging, jaded mortician opening the bodies of the bereaved.

i don’t want to be just another suicide.

 

i want to be drunk on pride, intoxicated from everything but the love i should no longer expect. i want to stop expecting anything from life. i want to be hollow of hate. i want herbal tea with honey in a microwave-safe mug in an apartment in the city where the world doesn’t sleep if you don’t want it to, where if you need sleep it comes as easily as breathing after the smell of peppermint oil in a hot shower. i want my finger stretched towards the sky. i want the rain to run down me, clothes drenched, scalp cold under the water, shivering until the sensation decides to take its leave. i want my hair to grow and change color, and my lips to raise. i want to be high.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted at http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/175451068419/i-want-to-be-high-i-want-my-nostrils-to-sting-and


	8. grief tiptoes

grief tiptoes  
up behind  
my aching feet-

soft, silent,  
and constant  
as a shadow;

following  
me alone  
til the night.

the earth turns  
and i watch  
my shadow fade

as the sun  
falls from sight  
the light retires-

grief remains  
though i watch  
my shadow fade.

it remains,  
tied up to  
the waiting sky-

as i sleep,  
shadow gone,  
i am bereft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted at http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/173460753473/grief-tiptoes-up-behind-my-aching-feet


	9. (six unrelated short pieces)

i grow.

feathers spout

from tired shoulders

formerly of the world’s weight

 

i stand,

ill-suited

to the ground, lively

and lovely as it is.

 

i sing:

the element

of air. of unearthly,

otherworldly soundwaves.

.

passerine flitting through trees growing out of the concrete, warm under sunlight, solar energy of the soul and a cell phone low on battery with another age-old flip phone sitting in a desk in a room in a house upstate and it’s been turned off for years. purple. hard. plastic. impervious, unbreakable, unshakeable as the faith of a fanatic. fanning the self with an outstretched hand, fingers together, cool as the bay, polluted and murky as the mind. a miasma of the soul, corruption and decay, a dead vulture watched over by a guardian dove. the ghost of a sparrow hovers; a pidgeon has been hurt by a little boy curious of what would happen should he catch it and twist its wing. naivete destroyed, replaced with horrible knowledge, the sight of having hurt another creature. of having caused death. the four birds of the apocalypse, as a fish chokes on purple hard plastic and its body chokes another and so on and so forth. Vonnegut, “so it goes,” and so did a singer i like, though the contexts have always been different. or, well, usually. portents of pain, a prophecy of death and despair in the form of birds dancing. not a mating dance, but the throes of death. just how it is.

.

 this, creaking bedframe desk dresser chair. expertly painted white flowering vines on walls that might as well have no insulation at all. not even cold out. colder by far in here. cold as Hell, numb.

this, a mug of lukewarm vanilla tea i should have added sugar to, something to stave off the growl. i rule this land, an empire the size of a room, with neither Love nor Fear. this is Kingdom Come.

.

menthol and moonshine. wait, no. beer that tastes like awfulness; mint tea and moonlight, hoarded champagne gummy bears and the last vestiges of beer that tastes like awfulness. a tiny little flask of wine. liquor-filled chocolate. peppermint-filled, bracing, midnight sounds of the city as i walk among the traffic lights. cross the road within the next five seconds or wait the rest of your life.

.

i am the sun. my world      is a system all its own

i am a newborn star cluster.     i    a m       bright beyond belief. i am a galaxy     i am something far off from this place. the Milky Way knows me not;

i      i l l u m i n a t e      eons away;

i am magic      i am creation    destruction       s t a s i s       chaos order all inbetweens.            i am inertia.        i am laws upturned,      physics outdated,  
          hypotheses made irrelevant .          extremes and the absolutes and the unseen wavelengths, the iron rust within me forged from the world’s loveliest stars. i am the sky.

i am ageless; i am infinite. hubris made devine. hedonism made holy. the clever false-truth of a primordial trickster deity whose blessing i hope to someday achieve, i am newly proven, the theory of self.

.

someone mixed glitter into a bottle of caligraphy ink, then poured it all on a glass table. and that’s the sky tonight, a canvas of perfect pure black spotted by stars- sweet. the air does taste so; like green tea. sugar. white chocolate. an expensive lip balm to be worn on a concert date, perhaps.

in any case, it’s sweet on the tongue, carried through an open breeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original posts, in order:  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/169828929978/suited-for-the-sky  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/177532193865/passerine-flitting-through-trees-growing-out-of  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/172100079300/this-is-my-kingdom  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/171984029206/menthol-and-moonshine-wait-no-beer-that-tastes  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/173366103788/i-am-the-sun-my-world-is-a-system-all-its  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/170442665939/someone-mixed-glitter-into-a-bottle-of-caligraphy


	10. interstitial

 

interstitial, i am within  
                                   the space between atoms between stars. heavenly bodies:

museum exhibits, holy vestments and the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter, liminal,

between canvas and wall

(sixteenth rests in abnormal  
                                           ly fast tempos,  
                                                                         the fade between songs  
                                                                                                              on an album you’ll forget.)

layovers; rollerskating rinks on interstate highways somewhere far off with  
hundreds of worn down antique stores scented with dust and dismay.

sawdust and construction and gasoline tanks; iron from blood.  
resin from rotted ruined trees and driftwood from the sea where i’ll be sure to drown someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original posts, in order:  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/183758553211/image-description-screenshot-of-a-poem-the-text  
> 


	11. judgement

staple cluster chords together and call it music

smear paint on canvas and call it art

smash a bowl and call it a broken heart.

 

break a heart and call it love

call a scream a cry

pour your water on the ground and say it's wine.

 

i am not the type of person people fall in love with.

 

call a gemstone in the dark a star

say that turquoise is blue

here are the things i love: fire, and you.

 

i am not the type of person people fall in love with.

 

so you think the sun's pretty?

you're watching through rose-tinted sunglasses of melted sand, and,

i've stopped believing in anything you say you are

 

i know that i should stay

but i kinda wanna just get in my lifeboat and float the hell away

 

i am not the type of person people fall in love with.

oh, love

you're in over your head

oh, love

don't you wish i was dead yet?

 

i staple cluster chords together, call it music

you draw my face and say i'm art

fall apart, fall apart, fall apart


	12. (five poems for one person)

_this is how i will fall in love with you._

i will fall in love by the middle C, and by tied off strings, rosewood

i will fall by fabric on the foldable chairs

i will fall, orisons in siderooms.

 

you will fall in love by the middle C, and by piano keys, pedals

you will fall by the pretend leather on the bench

you will fall, prayers in your bedroom.

 

fall into me.

.

_we are cut from the same stones._

we are of the same elements, all of them, four and five and infinite. we sing the same songs and blend like perfection, music of pure light and beauty. be-damned perfect pitch of yours, your grin-

_in our veins run the same supernova._

your voice sounds like the lakes at home, as if one was underwater, calm, meditative, air and water and light pressure in one’s ears. a feeling, not a sound-

_silverblueturquoise with bits of silvergold._

the canvas and river-rock, they were painted the colors of you. you are a different crystal than me, and we are of the same molecules. we resonate in the same chords.

.

my painting wasn’t supposed to be an ocean; it was supposed to be an aura, blue-green-gold, you-colored.

(if i think of you, my pupils expand.)

i spill every secret eventually. i’ll tell you at some point.

you’re everywhere, and i’m all around-

(when you touch me, my pupils expand.)

i let out my fanciful notions, from those that are violet to those that are cold. let the canvas be covered.

(if i think of you, my pupils expand.)

and there’s the song:  _“My head with oil thou dost anoint-”_

your voice is life within a sound-

(when i hear you sing, my pupils expand.)

.

there are emotions taking up space in my head where i always believed

my thoughts are supposed to be.

i have been in love with you far too long

i would like it to stop now, please.

.

a penny for your thoughts? i’m broke as fuck

and i could use some inspiration. conversation. whatever. it’s been forever

forever since i spoke to anybody like me-

anybody like you-

rhapsodizing on colors and ideas and phrases, shapeshifting. i can barely imagine the mountains you describe.

years have eroded me. but you, you glint- what were you like as a child?

and i spill ten percent of my thoughts too freely in thousands of copper words until they matter not

a penny for your thoughts?

years pass by, and even the shiniest copper rusts too.

my friend, i’m not a good painter-

but your aura shifts between green and blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original posts, in order:  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/155735693216/this-is-how-i-will-fall-in-love-with-you-i-will  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/152133122663/turquoise  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/151631377173/entwining-of-the-senses  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/154480895942/there-are-emotions-taking-up-space-in-my-head  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/151044633663/a-penny-for-your-thoughts-im-broke-as-fuck-and-i


	13. (three poems; thoughts on Death)

the arms of Death.

His warmth, seducing me, beckoning me

to step out of this flesh into something more handsome, more tasteful.

He’s inconstant as Romeo’s moon and Dickinson’s sea with amber hands-

by the gods, the man can’t commit

and yet i love Him still-

His unfettered grace.

.

i cannot believe the words  
spilling from beneath my own two thumbs  
i cannot believe the words  
that contradict what i have said so often  
but I AM NOT YET READY TO DIE  
and i find no solace in the fact that others  
will be coming with me  
in terrified hordes.

.

 

in the event of my death:

my viable organs will be donated,  
and what remains will be cremated  
the ashes will be buried.

i wish for poppy flowers to be placed upon my chest.

my real name must be present upon my tombstone-  
any type of stone  
with at least one quartz piece.

deadname me not, and i will have lived on  
through my memories and yours.

i want a choir to sing of the peace i’d be in  
starting with my prayer for the dead, then,  
Mozart’s Lux Aeterna, Seasons of Love  
and lastly my song of the Elements.

you must give my synesthesia paintings to someone  
who played with me in a band  
they have a voice like a forest and the world’s most beautiful hands  
you’ll know them when you see them  
and i ask that you send them my love, in the unlikely event of my death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original posts, in order:  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/152871673899/the-arms-of-death-his-warmth-seducing-me  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/152930725928/i-cannot-believe-the-words-spilling-from-beneath  
> http://crowned-in-stone.tumblr.com/post/160937694793/in-the-event


	14. "do you believe in love?"

**"Do you believe in love?"**

   i believe different types of attraction and affection exist, yes.  
   i believe that humans are able to feel a variety of things.  
   however, given the wording of this ask and what i've mentioned regarding my personal orientation, i can't help but interpret this question as intended towards romantic love.

so here's my answer:  
   i believe in a dog with more goodness in him than the entire human race will ever muster up. i believe in feeding crows in parks upstate, and sparrows in the city.  
   i believe in casting a circle on the ground in crushed eggshells, in pouring three spoonfuls of wine and three drops of blood out as a libation.

   i believe in Eros, if that's what you're asking. i believe in Aphrodite and Christ and the rest. i believe in belief, and i therefore believe in belief in love; both the faiths i was raised in taught me to place my faith in divinity, and though i no longer truly follow either, i believe in both. i believe in my culture, in forgiveness and atonement and hope.

   i believe in love when i worry about the welfare of others, and i believe in love when they are genuinely concerned for my own. i believe in love when i see the faces of my friends, when i hear a voicemail left by a friend who understands that phone calls are difficult for me, when i read the words they've written.  
   i believe in platonic love, because i'm lucky enough to have so many people on my life willing to bestow it upon me. and i know i'll never fully be able to grasp the true extent of the luck i have, not when i'm so privileged still-  
                                                           for i am!  
so much of this world concerns itself with productivity, with value, and i am able for the most part to meet enough of its standards. i am able to live unassisted.

                                                          and i am _alive_ , when i thought i would not make it past high school graduation, much less to today. i am able to introduce myself as my own name, to let others know that i am male; i am a self-made man, when many cannot or will not leave their own closets.  
                                                                                                                                                                    i made it out of the town i grew up in.  
                                                                                                                                                                     of that place, i can say in surety: _i believe in hate._

(and i was told for so long that i had to hate myself, that i deserved to, that i was less than nothing. i don't, not anymore; i tolerate myself, usually. i am able to appreciate my own body for being able to get me from place to place with minimal difficulty. is that self-love? i'm not sure, but it's more than many get.  
                                                                                     is that self-love? i'm not sure, but i hope there's more to it than that.

                                                                                                                                                                                             i'd like to fall in love with myself one day.)

   i believe in sex. i believe in healthy relationships, relationships where there's mutual trust and easygoing companionship. someday, i want a relationship that feels like coming home.

   i believe in Harlem boys and Brooklyn girls and nonbinary people from Astoria all meeting in a bar on the East Side and going home together; whether relationships result from that is anyone's guess and nobody's business.     i believe in eight people from all over the city sitting in a studio and telling stories and building something that might turn into a friendship for the ages; platonic attraction or no, that may be love, might it not?                                 isn't it simply a matter of perspective?

yes, i believe that i have issues, having been romantically attracted to very few people. all of them have hurt me. every person i love will either hurt me or die somehow, and maybe that's the personality disorders thinking but if i'm under a curse then what does it matter? i can suppress what attraction i feel.

and in the meantime, i will pray to Aphrodite Areia for vengeance. i will pray to the Morrigan for strength, because my life has been a battle with myself and with the world.

and _what place does love have in one who cannot define it?_


	15. meditation upon my latest binding-related rib inury

_do you believe in_

_an incorrectly set bone?_

a lavished leaf, tied down

to an open palm, attached

     to an incorrectly set bone?

  
the head is not the heart: neither aorta nor ventricle  
                                                             nor the liver itself

     could carry emotion

     could carry trauma

     could carry hurt-

                                                                yet what of nerve endings?

_do you believe in_

_an incorrectly set bone?_

                                                 a ribcage  
                                                 askew,     fractured,  
                                                                fragmented somehow?

for hearts

could carry no emotion,  
                                        yet they skip a beat still-              it never

     could carry emotion

     could carry trauma

     could carry hurt- but the ribcage carries all.

                                                                                                        and what of the brain?

                                                                                                        the brain is not the heart,

                                                                                                        the brain does not experience

 _-at least i don't think so-_ this hollow empty feeling

as if there's a black hole beneath my binder  
instead of a heart

the heart,

which never could

          carry emotion

          carry trauma

          carry hurt-  but the brain stores it all.

 

_so why place faith in_

_an incorrectly set bone?_

why wax poetic  
on candlewax

and lipstick-wax

on a broken heart?

_there are only two places where blame can be placed:_

_the broken mind,_

_an incorrectly set bone._


End file.
